Democrats on verge of supermajority in both houses of CA Legislature

The lights of the Capitol dome shine as lawmakers work into the night Friday, Aug. 31, 2018, in Sacramento, Calif. Friday is the final day for California lawmakers to consider bills before they adjourn until after the November elections. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli)

Photo: Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press

SACRAMENTO — Democrats appear poised to reclaim a supermajority in both houses of the Legislature, while potentially hitting a 4-decade-old high-water mark in the Assembly.

Senate Democrats needed to hold all their seats up for re-election Tuesday and pick up a Republican district to grab the supermajority, a two-thirds voting threshold that enables them to pass virtually any legislation without GOP help.

Democrats now hold 26 of 40 Senate seats and needed one more to get to the supermajority of 27.

No Democratic incumbents were trailing, although many ballots remain to be counted. The most likely pickup for the party was Senate District 14, which stretches from Fresno to Bakersfield. Sanger Councilwoman Melissa Hurtado was leading GOP incumbent Andy Vidak of Hanford (Kings County), 52 to 48 percent.

Melody Gutierrez joined the San Francisco Chronicle in 2013 to cover politics from the Sacramento bureau. Previously, she was a senior writer who covered politics, education and sports for The Sacramento Bee.

With an emphasis on watchdog reporting, she has written investigative stories on pension spiking, high school steroid use, troubles in a school police force and how the state failed to notify a school district that a teacher was barred from foster care parenting due to multiple molestation allegations.

She has also examined the state’s use of segregation cells for prisoners, detailed legislative and legal efforts to curtail "revenge porn" and chronicled the effects of the drought in California.